Editorial: Ross Valley sewer district needs a helping hand

ROSS VALLEY SANITARY DISTRICT is trying to step away from its recent course where it seemed to steam into legal and political fights with neighboring public agencies.

One of those agencies, the Central Marin Sanitation Agency — of which Ross Valley is a partner — can help Ross Valley out of its current financial bind by giving it more time to make its payment to CMSA.

Ross Valley's request for help from CMSA is smothered in political irony.

The district has spent the past eight years getting into fights, many of its own volition, with CMSA, which operates the San Rafael sewer plant that serves Ross Valley, San Rafael, San Quentin State Prison and Corte Madera.

The board at the time even looking into withdrawing from CMSA.

The district's costly legal battles, many with CMSA and other neighboring public agencies, were part of the reason voters in June decided it was time for a political change on the Ross Valley board. A new majority appears to be more interested in cooperating rather than paying lawyers and court costs.

Ross Valley's new board is asking CMSA to give the district a short grace period on its annual payment — more than $2 million — until revenue from property tax payments comes in.

The grace period would serve as a low-risk bridge loan, as district revenue will be coming in with the payment of local property tax bills.

CMSA's leadership should need no reminder that it shares taxpayers with Ross Valley.

While there may be good reason for settling the lawsuit between the two agencies, it should not be a quid pro quo for CMSA helping out Ross Valley. This is time for a neighborly helping hand for a municipal partner, not legal hardball.

Ross Valley's new leadership has inherited a money mess.

The old board's political bad blood with CMSA led to the loss of its lucrative contract with San Quentin. The district has had to pay a $1million fine for its large sewage spill in 2010, a costly settlement in its soured sale of its Larkspur Landing property, a payroll that grew while other public agencies were laying off workers and a series of costly capital projects approved and started even though the district was running short on cash.

There also is the $350,000 housing-allowance loan to Brett Richards, its general manager who resigned in the wake of the June election. The district board needs to make clear to the public whether it will seek repayment of that money.

District ratepayers deserve to know the status of that money.

CMSA's leadership may have been reluctant in the past to help out Ross Valley. But it should do what it can do, if financially possible and prudent, to reestablish a working and constructive relationship with Ross Valley.